Doc319
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 5:39 am Post subject: Kobe Bryant--Superstar or Selfish Reply with quote
The debate about whether Kobe Bryant is a legit superstar or a
talented but selfish player inspires very strong reactions in
support of both contentions. I have just published an article on
this issue at Hoopshype.com that includes quotes from NBA TV analyst
Fred Carter; I also cite Bob Chaikin's scoring field goal percentage
statistic, which Chaikin himself mentioned recently as an indicator that Bryant is more efficient as a shooter than
his 41% field goal percentage suggests.
The article can be found here:
http://hoopshype.com/columns/kobe_friedman.htm
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Mike G
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:43 am Post subject: Reply with quote
While Kobe was out (for 14 G), it seemed the other Lakers' effective shooting went down. Before, Kobe was the lowest of the top 6 guns; now he's about in the middle. This might be interpreted as : Kobe sets up the other guys for high-% opportunities.
Checking 82games.com, it appears everyone on the team does better with Kobe on the floor (excepting Walton):
http://82games.com/0405LALP.HTM
But 2 other guys have similarly positive net effects: Brian Cook and Jumaine Jones. These guys play 18 and 23 MPG, respectively; Cook has played about 55% of his minutes with Kobe, while Jones has only played 431 of his 1023+ with Kobe. When Kobe was out, Jones' minutes soared and he became a starter.
Jones is the highest eff% and lowest-volume shooter (more than half his pts are from 3) of the top 6 Lakers; yet he seems to be Kobe's de facto Replacement. And, he seems to have the same effect on his teammates.
Jumaine is no Kobe, but he'll do in a pinch?
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bchaikin
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 12:33 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
now that the season is just about over, just wanted to see what any kobe-bashers had to say. yes the lakers aren't going to make the playoffs, but they lost the best C in the league in shaq and replaced him with chris mihm...
as for kobe? many will cite his FG% of .431 as being his worst in seven seasons, but the reality is that his Scoring FG% (combining 2pters, 3pters, and FTs), despite the absence of shaq, is at a career high for him at .549, due to him taking more 3's than ever before - almost 6 per game - and hitting 34/35% of them, and getting to the line for a career best 10 FTA/g, and hitting 80+% of those. that Scoring FG% is also higher than the Scoring FG%s this season of ray allen, vince carter, michael redd, and jason richardson - as a matter of fact, its the highest Scoring FG% of any SG scoring at least 20 pts/g this season...
others will cite his poorer defense, but my numbers show me he is still a good defender (just not the best defending SG). his rebounding of 7reb/48min is similar to what it's been for most of the past 5 seasons, his shot blocking is as good as it's been the past 5 seasons, and although he's committing 4.0 TO/g, which is high, his touches/min are high (1.6 to 1.7 touches/min) and his rate of 6% turnovers (6 TO per 100 touches) is similar to that of other SGs such as manu ginobili, mike miller, and jerry stackhouse...
he also has passed the ball - per touch - at an identical rate to each of the past three seasons, with 50/51% of his touches...
the only kink i see in his numbers is a career low in steal rate...
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Mike G
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 1:07 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
bchaikin wrote:
now that the season is just about over, just wanted to see what any kobe-bashers had to say. yes the lakers aren't going to make the playoffs, but they lost the best C in the league in shaq and replaced him with chris mihm...
Actually, Shaq was traded for 3 guys who together have averaged 44.4 pts, 18.5 reb, and 10 ast. Granted, they needed 107 minutes to do these things. But 85% of the Lakers' non-Kobe minutes are from guys they didn't have last year.
Kobe's TS% (the term most of us here have agreed to use) is the most remarkably consistent stat I've seen from any player: between .536 and .549 his whole career; and .559 this year.
I wouldn't say a 34% rate from the arc is responsible for an improvement in TS% -- that's only 51% TS in itself. Rather, it's due to more FTA this year.
Kobe's career seems to be in a plateau phase over the last 5 years, with the middle of that span (02-03) being a distinct peak. Perhaps if the Lakers' situation stabilizes, he may continue what had been an upward trajectory.
But he'll be 3 years removed from that peak. And in the last 6 years, he's only played 70 games twice.
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Kurt
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:15 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Mike G wrote:
Kobe's career seems to be in a plateau phase over the last 5 years, with the middle of that span (02-03) being a distinct peak. Perhaps if the Lakers' situation stabilizes, he may continue what had been an upward trajectory.
But he'll be 3 years removed from that peak. And in the last 6 years, he's only played 70 games twice.
We're still talking about a 27-year-old here, even if this is his ninth season. I find it hard to think he could not reach that peak again or go higher with the right system (as opposed to the multiple and questionable offensive systems used by the Lakers this year) and with better support around him.
I know several people on this site (I'm thinking Ed was one) who had done work about the general age players at specific positions started to see rapid declines in performancy (they went over the top of the curve and started to fall fast). I'm curious if those are more tied to years in the league and the physical wear that happens because of that or just age of the player.
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Greg D
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 12:39 am Post subject: Kobe: Superstar or Selfish Reply with quote
Statistically, I admit Kobe is an effective player. But he appears to be a poor leader. I've seen him double and tripled teamed and refuse to give up the ball, take crazy turnaround jumpers, decide not to shoot for a half, to shoot left-handed (ok, it went in) and do other crazy stuff that pissed of PJ, Shaq and his other teammates. This leads to dissension and resentment, hallmarks of the Lakers last year and this year. You don't get your team to make the max effort on D and to do other things that don't necessarily show up in the glory stats when your best player does not play team ball consistently, pouts when others don't pass him the ball or when they miss shots. Like AI, I cannot imagine there are other good or great players who want to play second banana to Kobe. At least for more than one season. Showing up your HOF coach (whether it be PJ or Larry Brown) is no way to lead either.
So like AI, I think Kobe's teams in the future will be doomed unless he matures or management finds just the right kind of player (Kirilenko? Battier? Dampier?) to put up with Kobe's ego driven play. It's not Lamar Odom, that's for sure. But if Antoine Walker can reform himself (a debate for another day) I guess there's hope.
Yes, Kobe was a major factor in three championships. He has great skills, and as Bob C points out, good to great stats. But my limited observation of his play leads me to believe that he is selfish offensively all too often and that this will impair management's ability to surroind him with better players.
I know this is a stat-based site but I do not think every argument of this type can be captured in stats.
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HoopStudies
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 4:35 pm Post subject: Re: Kobe: Superstar or Selfish Reply with quote
Greg D wrote:
Statistically, I admit Kobe is an effective player. But he appears to be a poor leader. I've seen him double and tripled teamed and refuse to give up the ball, take crazy turnaround jumpers, decide not to shoot for a half, to shoot left-handed (ok, it went in) and do other crazy stuff that pissed of PJ, Shaq and his other teammates. This leads to dissension and resentment, hallmarks of the Lakers last year and this year. You don't get your team to make the max effort on D and to do other things that don't necessarily show up in the glory stats when your best player does not play team ball consistently, pouts when others don't pass him the ball or when they miss shots. Like AI, I cannot imagine there are other good or great players who want to play second banana to Kobe. At least for more than one season. Showing up your HOF coach (whether it be PJ or Larry Brown) is no way to lead either.
So like AI, I think Kobe's teams in the future will be doomed unless he matures or management finds just the right kind of player (Kirilenko? Battier? Dampier?) to put up with Kobe's ego driven play. It's not Lamar Odom, that's for sure. But if Antoine Walker can reform himself (a debate for another day) I guess there's hope.
Yes, Kobe was a major factor in three championships. He has great skills, and as Bob C points out, good to great stats. But my limited observation of his play leads me to believe that he is selfish offensively all too often and that this will impair management's ability to surroind him with better players.
I know this is a stat-based site but I do not think every argument of this type can be captured in stats.
I should mention that Basketball on Paper has a chapter that discusses measuring leadership. Or at least measuring the ability of the de facto leaders of teams. With Kobe this year as leader of the Lakers, that measure says that he is only about average. The measure often shows that the leader of a team defines his team's record. Given that the Lakers are mediocre, it makes sense that Kobe's measure is only mediocre.
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Doc319
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:56 pm Post subject: Leadership, limitations of statistical analysis Reply with quote
Dean, I take your post to mean that you believe that the two questions that I asked of Bob Chaikin in the Antoine Walker topic--"Do you buy the idea that Walker's leadership/presence may have some value that is not measurable statistically? Or is it your contention that each NBA player is no more and no less than the sum of his simulated statistics?"--are valid issues to be discussed in a statistics forum. Perhaps you would reword my first question to say "not easily measurable statistically." Please indicate if this is a fair appraisal of your views or not.
My point is that Bob stated that Antoine Walker's future dropoff in production is a "fact" but without stating how many games it will take for Walker's numbers to do so and without indicating how (or if) his sim accounts for leadership (and other "intangibles") that many observers consider to be important or at least relevant to evaluating basketball players. This makes his prediction impossible to prove or disprove, which places it in the realm of speculation, as opposed to scientific theory. I'm not trying to discredit his sim or statistical analysis in general; I'm saying that if his sim is scientific then it must conform to the scientific method, which means proposing a specific, testable hypothesis and having the willingness to modify the hypothesis if new evidence is found--in the specific instance of Walker, at some point the sample size of games is not small and a scientist would be willing to adjust his hypothesis if Walker maintains a higher than predicted level of performance. DanR and Dean do this all the time, referring to "noise" and indicating that there is a higher degree of certainty with some stats than with others. Acknowledging the possibility of error and a certain degree of uncertainty would not be a weakness in the sim or its creator--it would be a strength. The Titanic's engineers were 100% certain that they had crafted an unsinkable shift; I prefer my science and engineering with a degree of skepticism and uncertainty.
I have no personal stake in how Walker performs or whether or not Bob's sim is accurate or scientific. I'm not sure what Walker's career suggests about statistical analysis or "leadership." All I am doing--with the Kobe thread and with the Walker thread--is raising questions that I think are worthy of statistical evaluation in order to learn what statistical analysts have observed about these issues. The answer that Walker is "playing for a contract" (one of Bob's early responses) strikes me as practicing psychiatry without a license and the statement that his future production is a "fact" seems to be much bolder than the accepted norm for scientists and researchers. Maybe his future production is 75% certain (or some other percentage, if this can be supported by numerical evidence) but a "fact"? I guess we no longer need to play the games--we can just put the numbers in a sim and post the results in the newspaper.
For Bob to say that I should not question his sim's ability to measure leadership because I cannot do so myself frankly misses the entire point. I am not asserting that I can predict Walker's statistical future so precisely that it is an absolute fact (if that were possible one should do this with the stock market...), so the onus is not on me to demonstrate anything. I am asking questions to determine what is and is not being measured. If leadership (and other "intangibles" like setting screens, "help" defense, etc.) is considered irrelevent, then simply say so and others can decide for themselves if that makes the sim faulty or not (I never said that it does). If leadership is relevant but not measurable, then some kind of margin of error should be included in the analysis--Einstein kept including and removing the so-called "cosmological constant" in one of his formulas; maybe there is a way, as Dean suggests, to account for leadership in some way.
In any case, as DanR mentioned in the Walker thread and Dean points out here, these are indeed relevant questions to consider in a statistical analysis group.
I guess I could have posted this in the Walker thread, but since the "leadership" issue was raised here, with Bob referring to me indirectly, I felt that this was the correct thread in which to place this reply.
For what it's worth, Bob and I agree about Kobe and I cited his shooting percentage numbers in my article about Bryant. Despite the occasional (or not so occasional) venturing into vitriol and hyperbole, I find both this thread and the Walker thread very interesting and I am glad that I started both of these threads in this forum. Bryant and Walker are two players who we will be able to follow for the next several seasons and it will be interesting to see what happens in both of their careers.
--David Friedman
Contributing Editor, Basketball Spotlight
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HoopStudies
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 6:38 pm Post subject: Re: Leadership Reply with quote
Doc319 wrote:
Dean, I take your post to mean that you believe that the two questions that I asked of Bob Chaikin in the Antoine Walker topic--"Do you buy the idea that Walker's leadership/presence may have some value that is not measurable statistically? Or is it your contention that each NBA player is no more and no less than the sum of his simulated statistics?"--are valid issues to be discussed in a statistics forum. Perhaps you would reword my first question to say "not easily measurable statistically." Please indicate if this is a fair appraisal of your views or not.
In Basketball on Paper, I stated that measurement of the effect of leadership was pretty soft science. I still believe that. I think it is fair to say that without evidence that it matters, you don't have to consider it most applications. However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk about measuring it in a scientific way.
With regard to Walker, I would say that he was more a designated leader in Atlanta than he is in Boston, where Paul Pierce is alpha male. My concept of a leader is the person who does what it takes on his own and with his teammates to achieve the goal: winning. If we're saying leadership is something else, what is it? I don't think Walker has the role of doing what it takes in Boston to win. That is Pierce's role. Walker may have some wisdom of taking the right shot, uhh, maybe not. Maybe wisdom on defense that he can impart. Walker has been on teams with success and even surprising success with those Celtic teams. So maybe there is something there. But it has to be measurable somehow. What wins is performance that is fully measurable. If we can narrow down 95% of that performance to other things and 5% is left unexplained, maybe that is Walker's indirect (not unmeasurable) influence. That is the most it can be, at least.
Doc319 wrote:
My point is that Bob stated that Antoine Walker's future dropoff in production is a "fact" but without stating how many games it will take for his numbers to do so...
I do think that this is a good subject in general, well beyond Walker. How long does it take for numbers to stabilize, regress to the mean, whatever you want to call it.
Doc319 wrote:
Maybe his future prodution is 75% certain (or some other percentage, if this can be documented by numerical evidence)
I think you can say that a player is going to produce below or above a certain level with 75% or 95% certainty right now. Over the course of a season. But there is a lot of sampling variation between games.
Doc319 wrote:
maybe there is a way, as Dean suggests, to account for leadership in some way.
My old company had this "leadership training" for all the managers. It was this whole day of management and teamwork exercises. It was interesting, kinda fun, and I didn't drink the buttermilk (for those that know about this). But it did seem a bit silly to have so many people in the training. I will back up from that in a second, but, sheesh, 80 people all training to be leaders of the company? Some of those people clearly had no real leadership ability in the way that we think about it. Of course, the class had a way of sorting people into 4 different types of leaders, one or two of which had people that we wouldn't typically think of as leaders. Here is where I back up -- yes, those people were in a position of leadership, managing people, so they better have some idea of how to do it. But only a few people in that room had the stuff to, say, run a company.
I'll stop being a bastard now.
My point with that diatribe is that some teams don't need leadership and really shouldn't consider it at all. I don't think Boston needed leadership. They might have considered it with Walker. I really don't know. As much as anything, Boston got rid of dead weight (guys getting no minutes), got Gary back for nothing, and could move forward with one extra option they didn't have before.
Anyway, read Chapter 20 in Basketball on Paper. It talks about measuring leadership. I felt it was the most controversial stuff I put out (in that my support for it was less than elsewhere)...
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Doc319
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:07 pm Post subject: Measuring leadership, Roboscout Reply with quote
Dean,
I just went back to Chapter 20 to refresh my memory about what you did regarding leadership. Do you have this year's numbers handy with regard to Kobe and Antoine? Specifically, based on the composition of their teams (the actual games played, discounting players like Divac and George who missed almost all of the season) how do Kobe's and Antoine's W-L records compare to their teams and what does this suggest about their "leadership"? Realizing that you do consider this "soft science," I am still interested if your numbers suggest that Kobe did not "lead" well or if he simply did not have enough talent around him to win consistently (particularly when factoring in the games that he and Odom missed).
What do you think of the contention that the Shaq-Kobe Lakers were built around Shaq and the half court game (lots of three point shooters), so that when Shaq was out the Lakers were not equipped to play the up-tempo game that is best suited to Kobe's skills. Therefore, Kobe does not showup as the "leader" and he indeed was not the leader of those teams, but that with the right personnel around him (a fast breaking team) he would show up as the "leader" by the metric that we are discussing. As a corollary to this idea, maybe Kobe does not show up as a "leader" this year because this Laker roster is still not constructed to properly take advantage of what he does best. Who shows up by your measurement as the Suns' leader--Nash, Amare or somebody else? Is Nash more of a "leader" this year than he was with the Mavs? I interviewed Del Harris recently and asked him why Nash and Nowitzki, who seemed to be such a perfect duo, are each having career years playing apart. His basic reply was that the Phoenix roster is a running squad that best suits Nash's skills, while this year Dallas is a deeper, less predictable team so that teams cannot load up on one or two plays (pick and roll, etc.) to stop Dirk. Here is a link to the interview for those who are interested:
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/bas ... ght/115277
This season which players show up as the "best" leaders by the leadership metric you used in Basketball on Paper? Again, I understand that you consider this to be "soft" and inexact; I'm just interested what the numbers show to this point. Your discussion of D-Rob in Basketball on Paper is very interesting.
Also, on a different subject, last year you used Roboscout to predict a Pistons' triumph in the Finals. I know that you are working for the Sonics now and are probably limited in what you can say publicly, but can you share any Roboscout insights/predictions about this year's playoffs?
Thank you for your contributions to this field and to this forum. Specifically, I appreciate your thoughtful replies to this thread.
--David Friedman
Contributing Editor, Basketball Spotlight
www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/basketball_spotlight
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HoopStudies
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:18 pm Post subject: Re: Measuring leadership, Roboscout Reply with quote
Doc319 wrote:
Dean,
I just went back to Chapter 20 to refresh my memory about what you did regarding leadership. Do you have this year's numbers handy with regard to Kobe and Antoine? Specifically, based on the composition of their teams (the actual games played, discounting players like Divac and George who missed almost all of the season) how do Kobe's and Antoine's W-L records compare to their teams and what does this sugges about their "leadership"? Realizing that you do consider this "soft science," I am still interested if your numbers suggest that Kobe did not "lead" well or if he simply did not have enough talent around him to win consistently (particularly when factoring in the games that he and Odom missed). This season which players show up as the "best" leaders by this metric? Again, I understand that you considered this to be "soft" and inexact; I'm just interested what the numbers show. Your discussion of D-Rob in Basketball on Paper is very interesting.
Kobe 31-34
Walker 14-39 with Atlanta in a leadership role
Walker 7-15 with Boston in a nonleadership role
I won't run the full leadership thing until later (it does more than individual game-by-game win-loss records). I've got a toy to do some analysis with this but I've not seen a lot of value to it yet, so I haven't refined it to do things easily.
Doc319 wrote:
Also, last year you used Roboscout to predict a Pistons' triumph in the Finals. I know that you are working for the Sonics now and are probably limited in what you can say publicly, but can you share any Roboscout insights/predictions about this year's playoffs?
Nope, can't say anything. It's getting used pretty heavily with a lot of new stuff. We've been using it all year to some degree in Seattle. I've got some experimental stuff that I'm still debating whether to introduce to the staff for the playoffs...
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:35 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Dean,
Maybe there is an obvious answer to this, but how does Walker have a losing record this year with Boston?
Also, can you shed any light on the Nash/Nowitzki issue or are those among the numbers that you have not crunched yet?
Finally, regarding your "alpha male" concept of leadership, there is a certain logic to this but two questions occur to me: (1) In the ESPN the Magazine article about Walker it is asserted that Pierce was not as successful in this "alpha male" role without Walker's presence on the team. Is there a way to quantify how Walker's ability to set screens, feed the post, relieve Pierce of ball-handling responsibilities, etc. helps Pierce or are all of these effects, if they are significant, going to appear in the "measurables" that you, Bob Chaikin and others are already tracking? (2) There have been "role players" who are considered to be important leaders on their teams even though they were clearly not the "alpha male." I am thinking here specifically of the Bulls' Ron Harper and the Sonics' Nate McMillan. Is the type of "leadership" that these players provided statistically significant in your opinion and is there any way to track it? Does it show up in the way that you chart teams' w-l records vs. individual w-l records?
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HoopStudies
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:20 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Doc319 wrote:
Dean,
Maybe there is an obvious answer to this, but how does Walker have a losing record this year with Boston?
Frankly, by the numbers in BoP, his just aren't very good even in Boston.
Doc319 wrote:
Also, can you shed any light on the Nash/Nowitzki issue or are those among the numbers that you have not crunched yet?
Not even sure what the issue is.
Doc319 wrote:
Finally, regarding your "alpha male" concept of leadership, there is a certain logic to this but two questions occur to me: (1) In the ESPN the Magazine article about Walker it is asserted that Pierce was not as successful in this "alpha male" role without Walker's presence on the team. Is there a way to quantify how Walker's ability to set screens, feed the post, relieve Pierce of ball-handling responsibilities, etc. helps Pierce or are all of these effects, if they are significant, going to appear in the "measurables" that you, Bob Chaikin and others are already tracking? (2) There have been "role players" who are considered to be important leaders on their teams even though they were clearly not the "alpha male." I am thinking here specifically of the Bulls' Ron Harper and the Sonics' Nate McMillan. Is the type of "leadership" that these players provided statistically significant in your opinion and is there any way to track it? Does it show up in the way that you chart teams' w-l records vs. individual w-l records?
Leadership from someone who is not your best player just doesn't seem to help much. It usually means that they are good role players who can't carry a team. Were people talking about Harper's leadership of the horriBulls in 1999?
Obviously, it is soft science. And, frankly, I've always been more of the Nate McMillan player because I can't shoot but I definitely know how to complement good players. Maybe I can help a horrible team get better, but I'd also do it by trying to identify our truly best player (who should be better than I) and have them show the actions of a leader.
I'd love to do more on the subject. It's very interesting. Just not high enough on the priority list to get my time now.
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 4:53 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Dean, the Nash/Nowitzki issue is not a big deal--I was just wondering, according to your "alpha male" determination of who the team leader is, how you would categorize these two players last year and this year. Which one was Dallas' leader when they were teammates? Is Nash the "alpha male" on this year's Phoenix team or is it Amare or somebody else? Again, we're talking about your stat of comparing individual wins with team wins and your idea that the individual on the team whose wins most correlate with the team wins is the team leader (I hope that I did not mangle that in my attempt to restate it...)
The way this all relates to the Kobe thread is that I was wondering if maybe this "alpha male" trait is at least somewhat dependent on who one's teammates are. That gets back to Del Harris' quote to the effect that Nash is thriving in Phoenix because he has players who can run the floor very well. I'm wondering if your leadership numbers could shed some light on this--my theory is that if this is true, that maybe Nowitzki shows up as the "alpha male" when he and Nash played together but that Nash shows up as Phoenix's "alpha male" because the style of game suits him even better than Dallas' did. As for Kobe, to get back to your BoP example, maybe he did not show up as the Lakers' "alpha male" when he played with Shaq in part because the roster was filled with players who thrived in the half court set, making threes after Shaq is doubleteamed; I think that Kobe's skills are better suited to an open court game in which he can attack before the defense is set. That seemed to be the source of at least some of the friction with Shaq--Kobe wanting to run and Shaq taking his time to come down court and secure post position. I realize that some of this science is a little "soft," as you say, and that there are some oversimplifications here--Shaq sometimes runs the floor and Kobe can also score (and distribute) in a half court situation.
As for Harper's leadership on what you aptly termed the Horribulls, is their record a reflection on his leadership? To take an extreme example to make the point, if Harper is the greatest leader in the world he still could not lead four guys from the Y to victory against even the worst NBA team. At some point talent--or lack thereof--supercedes leadership. However, when the requisite talent to win is present it still may require the right leadership to get over the top. Portland seemed to have enough talent to win a few years back, but couldn't quite get it done. Harper could not rescue the Horribulls and Walker could not save the Hawks, but Harper seemed to have an importance on the Bulls that was greater than his measurable stats (the games the Bulls lost in the '96 Finals were when he did not play); the anecdotal evidence about Walker this year is that he is having that kind of effect in Boston. Watching Kobe this year it seemed that a lot of his dribble penetrations ended in missed jump shots or dropped passes; he didn't have a dead-eye shooter or a great finisher to convert his passes into field goals.
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mtamada
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 1:19 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Doc319 wrote:
As for Harper's leadership on what you aptly termed the Horribulls, is their record a reflection on his leadership?
[...]
Harper could not rescue the Horribulls and Walker could not save the Hawks, but Harper seemed to have an importance on the Bulls that was greater than his measurable stats (the games the Bulls lost in the '96 Finals were when he did not play); the anecdotal evidence about Walker this year is that he is having that kind of effect in Boston.
I think this thread is trying to use the word "leadership" in two different ways, leading to some confusion and ambiguity.
I don't recall people talking about Harper's "leadership" on the Bulls, but they certainly did talk about his (non-statistically measured) importance to them, mainly defensively, with the key example being exactly the one that Doc319 mentions, the Bulls' poorer performance in the 1996 Finals when Harper was injured. It was parallel to Nate McMillan's role with the Sonics in 1996; the Sonics beat the Bulls in the games in which McMillan was able to play significant minutes (the key element however being McMillan's playmaking rather than his defense, important though that was). And I don't recall people calling McMillan a "leader" on that team -- but George Karl did call him the "glue" which held the Sonics together.
IOW, I don't think role players such as Harper and McMillan can be called "leaders", at least not in the sense of a Jordan or Magic. What they are providing should be called something else (I'm not sure what term we should use; maybe "glue" is as good as any. Or "role-playing leadership".)
An example of the difference between "leadership" and "glue": one would never expect a Harper or a McMillan to be able to transform a roster such as the HorriBulls of the late 1990s. Role players can't do that.
But franchise players (especially those who are "leaders") can. Jordan, Kemp+Payton, maybe Pippen. They might not be able to do so singlehandedly (even Kobe clearly needs help to take the Lakers into the playoffs), but they are the kinds of players who you DO expect to have a big impact on such rosters. Especially the franchise players who are expected to provide "leadership". Jordan arrives in 1984 and the Bulls win 11 more games and make the playoffs for the first time in x years. Bird arrives and the Celtics win 32 more games and advance to the Eastern Conf finals. Etc.
Whereas the role-playing leaders such as Harper and McMillan cannot have such a transformative effect on a lousy roster. But they can make a good roster into a great one; with Harper on the 1996 Bulls were a 72-win team; with Harper injured, the Bulls couldn't even beat the Sonics. Conversely, with McMillan on, the Sonics could beat the 1996 Bulls; without him the Bulls could smother the Sonics. (Obviously, those wins and losses can't be ascribed just to one player -- but maybe they can be ascribed to two players, namely Harper and McMillan. Plus Payton being able to contribute a lot more in the last 3 games of the series.)
Walker's leadership, if indeed he's providing it to the Celtics, is in between the "franchise" level and the "role player" level, because he's clearly not a franchise player but more than a role player for Boston.
Doc319 mentioned an espn.com column; it may've been the same one that I read, by Bill Simmons, who said that when Walker's on the team, the Celtics, Paul Pierce in particular, play harder. If true, that'd certainly be a form of leadership -- not the franchise player kind of leadership, where Walker transforms the Hawks into a decent team (obviously he didn't, and can't, do that). But it could be something like the role-player, glue kind of leadership (except that he's more than role-player).
As I mentioned in another thread, since Walker rejoined the Celtics, if anything Pierce's rebounding seems down a bit (but Walker could be grabbing some of the rebounds which previously went to Pierce) and his scoring hasn't changed much. But Pierce's TS% is way up, through February (roughly corresponding to the non-Walker months), Pierce was at .630; in March and April he's been at .683.
Is that due to Walker? Who knows, this is where someone who's closer to the team or who sees their games firsthand is needed.
Does Kobe provide "leadership"? He's a very talented player, but his poor shot selection (of course this part IS measureable; Kobe's TS% is around league average, which in my book is darned poor for a player who should be, and by all indications in previous years when teamed with Shaq could have been, shooting a much better percentage) and antagonism of teammates IMO say "no". I believe it was the 2001 season in which Kobe during the first two months was neck and neck with Iverson for the league scoring lead -- and practically tearing the team apart with his lack of passing and shot selection. Gradually, from January to the All-star break, pressure from Phil Jackson, Shaq, (and I'll bet Jerry West too) got Kobe to play in a more team-oriented mode, so by spring the Lakers were firing on all cylinders. He settled for being 4th in the league in scoring (behind, in particular, Shaq), and the Lakers were the better for all this, winning the second of their three championships.
Kobe was fine in 2002 and the Lakers won another championship, but in 2004 the antagonisms surfaced again, with the contrast between the Pistons' dedication to team play compared to the Lakers being quite stark.
Doc319
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 4:17 am Post subject: Reply with quote
MikeT, I agree that in this thread (and also in the Walker thread) we have been speaking at various times of two different types of "leadership" or, more precisely, two different kinds of--as you put it--"non-statistically measured" elements. This all started over in the Walker thread when BobC steadfastly maintained how awful a player Walker is, that any statistical improvement he is showing is only temporary and that the first hand statements of coaches, teammates and writers about his intangible contributions are irrelevant. I cited "leadership" as an example of an intangible that many observers would consider to be important and asked whether it is accounted for in the sim; the sim can either measure it or include some margin of error to account for not quantifying it directly.
I was using "leadership" as a stand in for all of the things that you call "non-statistically measured" elements but eventually the discussion focused on "leadership" to the exclusion of the larger issue of importance--what are the limits/margins of error for what can and cannot be measured by a sim or any other form of stats analysis. DanR and DeanO seem to agree that this is a question of some importance. If a sim or other form of stats analysis cannot produce measurable, testable hypotheses that can be proven or disproven, it is not science. DeanO's Roboscout predicted that Detroit would beat L.A. in the Finals--that is an example of producing a measurable, testable hypothesis; the next question would be if Roboscout can repeatedly do this with a high degree of success--scientists don't run an experiment once and then consider the results definitive for all time (I know that DeanO understands this, I'm just emphasizing it to make my point clear). The issue is really not about "leadership" at all--although it has led to an interesting, separate discussion of leadership here, which included DeanO pointing out that in his book he actually included a measurement of leadership, albeit one that he considers "soft" science.
Your characterization of Walker as a hybrid between DeanO's "alpha male" leader and a Harper/McMillan "glue" role player seems to be as apt a description of Walker as any--it fits the fact that the Celtics improved their W-L record when he arrived (and that they made the Eastern Finals during his first tenure, but lost in the first round when he departed) but that what he is providing is elusive to quantify. Other than Bob, who is certain that he has Walker's entire career trajectory plotted out, most people who posted replies about Walker seemed to find him to be a vexing and contradictory case from a stats standpoint. Perhaps this is because he is the type of hybrid that you are describing. Maybe sims/stats analyses have a higher degree of accuracy about "regular" players than the rare hybrid case.
There are two "ESPN" articles about Walker--one on ESPN.com by Bill Simmons and the other in ESPN the Magazine by Tom Friend. I was the first to mention Friend's article in this forum; someone else brought up the Simmons article, which actually appeared in print first. Friend's article mentions that Ainge basically says that he was wrong about Walker and did not realize what kind of positive impact he had on the team and in the locker room until Walker was gone. I've made reference to that article on a few occasions, wondering if there is a way to directly or indirectly quantify the positive traits of Walker's that are mentioned there. If not, we must either conclude that the NBA coaches, GMs and writers who refer to these things are idiots (DanR states in a different thread that BobC seems to believe this) or that there is some margin of error/degree of uncertainty about player ratings/sims because they cannot quantify effects that close observers of the game perceive. The last point is what I'm really getting at--what exactly can and cannot be measured and how much of a margin of error is there when a sim/rating system, etc. produces a numerical evaluation of a player. I certainly do not believe that it is producing 100% factual predictions of future performance. DeanO mentioned earlier that the accuracy is at least 75% at this point in time (not sure if he meant this in general or specifically in reference to his methods); this may or may not be true--I wonder how exactly that would be documented.
--David Friedman
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Mike G
Joined: 14 Jan 2005
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 8:48 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Quote:
Kobe's TS% is around league average,...
Actually, league average is about .529, and Kobe winds up at .563. Earlier in the year, I made a couple of posts about how Kobe's TS% was less than all his primary teammates. But when he was injured, their efficiencies faltered; by year's end, they come out like this:
TS% . . player . . . . . . PPG
.563 Bryant,Kobe . . 27.6
.558 Atkins,Chucky . 13.6
.556 Jones,Jumaine .. 7.6
.552 Mihm,Chris . . . . 9.8
.539 Grant,Brian . . . . 3.8
.539 Odom,Lamar . . 15.2
.528 Butler,Caron . .. 15.5
.522 Cook,Brian . . . . 6.4
.437 Brown,Tierre . . . 4.4
This is almost a perfect distribution of who-should-be-taking-the-shots. It may even be that Kobe was being Too deferential toward the end of the season.
Also, this is Kobe's highest TS% ever. Due largely to the huge increase in his FTA.
Quote:
Walker 14-39 with Atlanta in a leadership role
Walker 7-15 with Boston in a nonleadership role
Here's what I have for Walker's 2005 sub-seasons:
tm. TS% Sco Reb Ast Stl TO.. Blk -- eW/48
Atl. .474 16.7 9.4 3.6 1.1 (3.3) 0.6 - .119
Bos .490 15.9 9.3 3.1 1.1 (3.1) 1.2 - .124
eWins per 48 minutes: I'm still tinkering with weights on this one. But for a given player, you see basically the same Antoine in Boston. They didn't need him to shoot as much; he "improved" by monopolizing the ball less and by blocking a few shots.
But this is still an above-average player. He helps most teams, and he may be the type who doesn't help teams with great depth.
Quote:
...last year you used Roboscout to predict a Pistons' triumph in the Finals...
Did Robo do this ?
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HoopStudies
Joined: 30 Dec 2004
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 8:57 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Mike G wrote:
Quote:
...last year you used Roboscout to predict a Pistons' triumph in the Finals...
Did Robo do this ?
What it did is highlight a few strategies that could be used to win in 5 games. I had no way of knowing whether Detroit would use those strategies. So it wasn't a prediction and Roboscout is not about predictions. But in the sense that it showed how close Detroit was to winning in 5 and not getting killed as most people seemed to think, it makes a prediction. Still, I'd say it's more a strategy tool than a predictor.
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Doc319
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:22 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
DeanO, I did not mean to overstate or misrepresent what you did with Roboscout. I do remember you mentioning that IF the Pistons followed certain strategies then they had a good chance of winning, which is not the same as predicting that Detroit would win. Still, what Roboscout did fits in with what I am talking about in terms of making a verifiable hypothesis and then observing what happens. Apparently Detroit followed enough of those strategies to be successful--I know that after the Finals you posted info with details about how extensively Det did or did not use Roboscout's recommended strategies, but I don't have that info in front of me at the moment.
MikeG, your comment about Kobe being TOO deferential is very intriguing. Of course, such a sentiment flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but if one actually watched the Lakers play this year, it became clear that Kobe deferred to his teammates quite often--driving to the hoop and then kicking the ball to three point shooters when he could easily have decided to shoot the ball himself. If he were truly determined to win the scoring title, he would have shot every one of those point blank opportunities, particularly since Iverson had a good lead over him in the scoring race. Kobe also dumped the ball off a lot to Mihm, who sometimes caught the ball and finished well and who sometimes fumbled the ball out of bounds. This is not to say that Kobe did not shoot a lot, but shooting a lot does not mean that he was not trying to involve his teammates also. Kobe, Iverson, T-Mac, LeBron, Wade, etc. all shoot a lot and they all also involve their teammates--it's just that LeBron and Wade get a lot more credit for doing so.
I wonder if anyone measures what I like to think of as "hand-grenade" FGAs--the shots that someone gets stuck with when the shot clock is winding down and his teammate passes him the ball so he doesn't get caught holding the "grenade" when the shot clock "explodes." To be specific, a "hand-grenade" FGA could be defined as a shot that occurs after a player receives a pass outside the paint with less than 4 seconds on the shot clock. We could make a sub-category for plays that begin with less than 4 seconds left in the quarter or game, since the team has no choice but to launch such a shot (as opposed to starting a possession with enough time and mismanaging the situation to the point that someone gets stuck holding the "grenade"). This discounts feeds to post players for easy dunks as the shot clock expires and discounts guys like Marbury and Francis who dribble out the whole clock and then launch these kinds of shots. I suspect that Kobe shot a high number of such attempts this year and not solely because he was monopolizing the ball. Often the Lakers would run a play or set, it wouldn't result in an open shot and someone would pass the ball back to Kobe as the clock wound down, so Kobe had no choice but to shoot.
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kjb
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:56 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
David: The "hand-grenade" possession information is available at 82games. Check the shooting details on the right hand side for that player's shot clock usage. Here's Kobe's page:
http://www.82games.com/04LAL6A.HTM
17% of Kobe's FGA came in the final 3 seconds of the shot clock, according to this data. Contrast with Paul Pierce -- 10%. Or Iverson -- 6%. McGrady 10%, Garnett 16%, Kidd 13%, Marbury 12%, Nash 6%, Duncan 16%, Ginobili 13%, Arenas 10%, Dirk 13%, Wade 12% and Shaq 18%.
The fact that Kobe took so many shots late in the shot clock does suggest he took a significant portion of the tougher/lower percentage shot attempts. Roland's shot clock data shows that shots late in the shot clock are lower percentage than shots taken earlier.
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jambalaya
Joined: 30 Jan 2005
Posts: 282
PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 2:54 am Post subject: kobe next year - 21 areas for possible improvement Reply with quote
we dont know the coach or the full lineup of course but among these which do you think kobe is likely to achieve next year and which should he and the coach most emphasize?
1. score 30 points a game
2. dish out 9 assists
3. grab 7.5 rebounds
4. improve 3 pt % to greater than 36%
5. increase 3ptrs made to 3-4 a game
5. raise eFG% for all shots from 48% to over 50%
6. raise eFG% on jump shots from 43% to over 45%
7. increase inside shots
(by the way in addition to bob's comments about kobe's career high scoring FG%, i noticed two other things- he shot a resptable 47% from just 2pt land overall. but % inside shots fell from 34% last year to a still high 29%. the presence of malone and payton probably got kobe more shots on cuts and now that is gone. odom and atkins arent malone and payton but they are fairly capable passers. kobe's inside shots are still up compared to 2002-03 when it was only 22%. this was probably a conscious effort on kobe's part + some ability/finds by the new teammates.)
8. improve clutch eFG% from 35% to 40% (like year) or above
9. cut his turnovers to under 3.
10. raise his steals to over 2.
11. play point full-time
12. let somebody else initiate more of the offense
13. help improve team D by at least 3 pts
14. raise his +/- from around +3 to over +8 (it was only +3 this year, +6 last year, +10 the year before
15. raise his teammates scoring by at least 3-5 points
16. recruit effective complementary free agents
17. do or stay with what the coach asks more often on offensive plays
18. be a better leader off the court and in the locker room
19. develop more chemisty with butler and odom
20. play fewer minutes and make the minutes he does play more efficient and impactful
21. stop trying to be michael jordan or even better than that
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gabefarkas
Joined: 31 Dec 2004
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Location: Durham, NC
PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 8:27 am Post subject: Reply with quote
#1 and #5 are the only ones i see really happening. but since i have no statistics to back that up, i don't have anything else to say about it.
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bchaikin
Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 690
Location: cleveland, ohio
PostPosted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 5:13 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
any thoughts on the latest kobe bryant fracas (with mike miller of the grizzlies)? more selfishness or a show of leadership?...
